Campaigners are drawing up their own plans to refurbish and keep their Tottenham-based market (Picture: Jerry Syder/Metro.co.uk)

Following the council’s decision to demolish its Elephant and Castle sister market, Tottenham’s village is the second largest concentration of Latinx businesses in the country, drawing in visitors from as far as Yorkshire.

But it is under threat.

In 2016 Haringey Council issued a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) for residential property giant, Grainger PLC, and business management consultor, Market Asset Management, to demolish Wards Corner and create 196 flats, a shopping centre and a new market.

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This year on January 23, the Secretary of State gave it the green light, despite objections from traders, supported by the United Nations, who claimed it breaches human rights.

Around 150 Latin American and African workers are employed through Pueblito Paisa (Picture: Jerry Syder/Metro.co.uk)

Businesses will move to a ‘temporary’ market across the road at Apex House, with increased undisclosed rent prices following a three-month rent-free period, and will be advertised to new traders.

Officials say the temporary market will eventually move back to the original Wards Corner site, but according to the council’s CPO decision document, no time frame is stated.

The document even admits the agreement ‘does not provide a cast iron guarantee that the new permanent market will be provided’.

Stefanie Alvarez sees the village as a home and is campaigning for change (Picture: Jerry Syder/Metro.co.uk)

Campaigner Stefanie Alvarez, 24, tells Metro.co.uk that the plans are unclear and traders have been ‘racially discriminated’ against by management.

‘There’s nothing certain and no reassurances in place that the supposed market will happen,’ says Colombian-Spanish Stefanie from Finchley.

‘There’s no confidence in the current market manager who is essentially facilitating the move.

Pueblito Paisa is home to 60 different businesses (Picture: Jerry Syder/Metro.co.uk)

Some 70% of traders are BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) women and refugees depending on the village for an income and childcare support. Due to a lack of youth centres, children from multicultural backgrounds rely on it for after school activities.

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Campaigners have just 18 days to appeal the decision and have so far justice funded more than £12,000 for legal fees and an alternative proposal to refurbish Pueblito Paisa.

There are more than 200,000 Latin American residents in the UK (Picture: Jerry Syder/Metro.co.uk)

Grainger and Market Asset Management deny claims of discrimination and say they, along with Haringey Council, ‘look forward’ to continue working with traders to help them get the market they want.

Stefanie’s mum was one of the first traders in 2000, fleeing Colombia, aged 18, with her one-year-old daughter to seek UK asylum after the far-left guerrilla killed her grandfather and sent her family death threats.

Pueblito Paisa gave them hope and the family now own several businesses within it.

Stefanie grew up playing in the market and allowed her to connect with her Colombian identity in London (Picture: Jerry Syder/Metro.co.uk)

‘Mum couldn’t have childcare, this provided that. I used to run and play here – everyone watched me and even told me off if I was naughty,’ says Stefanie.

‘The saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. That’s exactly what this is.’

Stefanie’s aunt, Paula Alvarez, 44, has been protesting for 12 years and wants to renovate the space but is ‘swimming against the current’ and claims since 2015 management has not ‘invested a penny’.

Paula Alvarez has been fighting for over a decade to save her ‘safe space’ (Picture: Jerry Syder/Metro.co.uk)

‘I’m so sad. We’ve been victims of discrimination and racism. The project doesn’t have any social investment, they’re all private,’ she says.

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‘It’s horrible seeing the newspapers say there’ll be less robberies and crime – that it’s a form of cleansing the area.

‘But this place actually keeps kids out of trouble and gives them something to do.’

Javie Huxley, 25, from Felixstowe, understands the negative impact of not having a community like Pueblito Paisa, having felt ‘isolated’ as the only ‘brown person’ in school.

Searching for a better education for three-year-old Javie, the family left Chile for the UK at the expense of her mum’s Latin identity.

‘Mum didn’t speak Spanish to us. She was so obsessed with fitting in and being a ‘good migrant’, she never felt comfortable empowering us with our Latin heritage,’ says Javie, a gal-dem magazine illustrator.

‘My mental health suffered, I didn’t know how to identify myself. I had lots of comments about my skin colour, or why I was curvy.

‘People thought it was their right to tell me why I didn’t fit in. Finding this community has done so much for my self-esteem.’